Hi,
My goldfish have been laying eggs/breeding like crazy! It's making it really hard to keep the tank clean!

I have 4 fish total in a 46 gallon tank. Two fantails (one 3-4 inches, the other just a baby around 1 inch!), one black more, and an oranda.

The Oranda is the one who I suspected was laying the eggs, as the larger fantail (the male) had been chasing her around. So, I removed her into a 10 gallon tank. But then, I found that my black moor must have been laying eggs too, because after some heavy egg-removing cleaning, there were more eggs the next day!

So now I have a problem.... I would much rather clean out the small 10 gallon tank, should that too become filled with eggs, but is it too small for temporarily holding both the oranda and the black moor?! I would move the male fantail into the 10 gallon, but I'm afraid I'd still be cleaning out eggs out of the big tank, as there have still been eggs in the 10 gallon tank!

Also, I think my Oranda is really missing her much taller normal home, because she LOVES to swim!

Is there anyway to STOP them from laying eggs so they can be back together peacefully?

No, unless you have separate tanks for males and females.

That happened to me too. Once they started breeding,they didn't stop so I ended up separating the males and females.The female will be stressed out from all the chasing so if you can,maybe it would be better to separate them.Just my opinion though

It's sort of a "thing" going on in there. Once a pair starts breeding, they all follow. It's a headache but you can't do much about it. For now, it would be ok to put all the eggs in a small 2 gallon container of something til they hatch so that you will have time to fix up your fish. I expect them to breed again within the next 2 weeks. Be careful. Good luck to your new fish. I guess you could raise the temperature a bit so they would stop breeding. It helped in my fish. Or just separate them.

Thanks for your suggestions, but um...Now I'm starting to wonder if these stuff I think is eggs is something else! Or maybe the fish I thought was male has been the egging laying female all along.

I have seperated the Oranda and the moor from the fantail, but now there are eggs in BOTH tanks still.

I thought the fantail was for sure the male because he/she was the one doing all the chasing.

Could this stuff that is growing/getting EVERYWHERE be some sort of algae?

I think the boys are the one that will chase the girls so I think your fantail is a male



I'm not sure about that.Maybe you could take a pic and start a new thread on goldfish discussion.Sorry can't be much help

I switched them around and have the black moor alone in the 10 gallon tank. I also cut down on the amount and number of times I've been feeding them, just in case it was something else other than eggs.

I'm not sure which of the changes worked, but I haven't seen any more eggs

I'm guessing the moor was the complusive egg layer She seems to be doing okay in her tank alone. When I reunited my oranda and fantail, they seemed so happy! They must have missed each other

I'm glad you sorted out the mystery Your black moor must be soooo relieved that no ones chasing her anymore.I'm sure she's exhausted and stressed after laying eggs.She needs the rest Are you going to keep them separately from here on??